Reflection Celebration Week, “The Art of Journal: Form and Function”

Reflection Celebration Week

August 2, 2009-August 8, 2009 

Though we turn to a journal because our minds or lives are going a million experiences per hour, reflection is often a solitary activity.  Physically, we sit alone to script our secrets.  I invite you to join in a cyber celebration of reflection and its benefits, that will hopefully resonate with your “real” life.  Let’s get together to discuss one of the most well-known love-hate relationships ever heard of…the self and journal.  How many times have you started one and stopped three entries in?  I want us to get together at this blog, for a week, to gush about journal goodness, share and collect ideas, and raise our pens in self-expression solidarity.  Because, I do believe that the world will be made better one journal at a time. 

Expression, whether in a crowded cafe or in a cozy personal space can be beneficial.  Plus, some thoughts simply aren’t nice, and something about letting those juicy judgments escape with noone harmed feels soooo good.  If we have kept a catalog of our lives for a while, we do occasionally look back for a good laugh, cry, or most often, cringe session (see: Cringe: Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems, and Abandoned Rock Operas by Sarah Brown).    Track your own growth over time.  Notice your strengths and the way you handled certain situations in a kickass manner.  Pat yourself on the back for those moments of maturity and insight, and pat yourself on the head for those silly issues you internally squirmed about for so long.  Peek into your past self.  Trade in now to take in how far you’ve come.  See your life as the story it has become.  Or, if you haven’t ever tried your hand at the whole journal thing, maybe start now.  Try.  Because journaling means so much to me and has served as a centerpiece for the lives of my family and friends; because we are a culture full of voyeuristic creepsters; because something I have clumsily learned to do as I went along…something that seemed such a simple concept in the beginning (write.) has become critical, it seems right to celebrate reflection for all its glitches and glory.

Maybe you already have or may you haven’t, but from tons of experience I’ve learned that the way you journal makes a big difference.  Below is my review of journal keeping methods, which involves many choices depending on what you want to get out of your reflection.  This list is an open-ended sample of ideas and is always able to grow.  Some are suggestions I’ve come up with for creative personal record-keeping.  When you begin thinking about your writing, you will run into choices about the form (what it looks like) and the function (how you want it to serve you).

Form:

Lines/No-Lines: Maybe you want the order a set of faint lines brings to your printing.  Though, some people prefer to let it flow in that endearing lopsided way.  Either way, they do feel different.

Flashy/discreet:  This is a big one.  Do you want to go to your journal and feel like you’re opening a lavish little treasure where you keep all your deepest exhilerating fantasies or do you want to talk out your taboos in a 70 cent spiral notebook from CVS?  Do you want to feel like you are opening a present every time you write or do you just want somewhere to put your damn thoughts and ideas?  I have to admit, I did start with a Winnie the Pooh journal in fourth grade; it locked and had oddly-shaped pages with faded illustrations underneath the lines, and a fluffy cover.  However, since a traumatic episode as an early journaler with a nosy little sister and brother, I have stuck to plain old rinky dink spirals.  Nobody seemed to notice that there was a journal mixed in with books and schoolwork.  Under the radar, I could obsessively write during every high school class.  BUT, I think I’ve also coveted the fancy journals of my innocence, because I couldn’t resist decorating the covers.  After a while, I ran out of new spiral colors and decided to try new types.  Surprisingly, I went to Staples and found exactly what I wanted: a hardbacked journal (easier for writing regardless of surface and writing situation), with lines, the size of a spiral but with a unique quality.  There, I found lots of interpretations of the traditional spiral and I could decorate away.

 Daily Routine or Sporadic Free-Flowing:  In the past, people have asked me with a hint of disdain, “You don’t write down everything that happens every day do you?”  Honestly, I didn’t know how to answer, because I have at times seen my journal turn into a pretty precise play-by-play of my days, and that is what I needed at the time.  In the same breath, I rarely have demanded myself to write every single day and it doesn’t usually happen that way for me naturally.  So, having journal writing as a daily routine can really be a way you cope with a busy life or give yourself some structure or strive to keep your center, but only letting the mind activity out when it presses so hard into your ears that you can barely focus on the other trillion distractions outside may be the better way for you.

Function:

Flash Journaling

• With flash fiction (see Ernest Hemingway and others) as its inspiration, I decided to apply this technique to journaling.  Because I tend to be long-winded and very detail-oriented, I figured it was time for a change.  I wanted a challenge.  So, instead of writing full, front-and-back 8×11 pages worth of daily happenings, my newest journal consists of one small (a few lines worth) page every day.  The trick is to come up with clever ways to relate what is going on, but this option poses issues too.  I’m used to writing whenever I want, so keeping up with one entry every day has actually been hard.  Plus, I’m not used to space limits, so cramming my mental crap into such an itty bitty area can be frustrating.  Overall, though, this has been what I hoped it would be originally: a certain type of liberating in its limits…I live instead of only writing about living.

Video/Webcam Journaling

• Thought of this the other day.  Then realized that in an age of reality t.v. (What Not To Wear, Real World, ETC.), this idea seems so obvious, but I don’t know anyone who has ever kept a regular video journal.  I think the act of writing is way too appealing to me–I almost need to write, but for some this could be the way to overcome writing issues.  With a simple webcam and microphone, you can look yourself in the eyes, set a timer (5/10 minutes?) and get your gripes out.  Recordings I’ve made like this are easily saved and moved around.  Thinking further, maybe you could even make CDs so that the entries don’t clog up your computer and they can easily be dated and filed away discreetly. 

Letters

• Many people I talk to write because they want to release hot steam or confessions directed toward another person.  Keeping a journal of secret letters is a beautiful way to say everything you want to say with or without tact.  And, you’ll probably later thank yourself for all the things you didn’t say to that person.  Whether it was letters written to my boyfriend as a teenager, or letters written, as a 20-something, to my last boss after I got laid-off and to shitty roomies who shut me out, the letters I have written resolved the rage I felt within, but didn’t risk my reputation by inviting loose-cannon labels. And, those damn inflated airline charges for baggage, I’ve reacted to those in my journal too and have even sent some off to protect political causes about which I care.

Nature Journal

• Historically, this has been a very popular way to approach self-reflection while meeting the world.  To get away from lofty abstract blah blah blahing, try writing about what you can see and touch right in front of you.  Take your paper with you on a walk…urban or rural setting, no matter, and write about what in your sight inspires you.  Maybe include a pasted example of what you encounter.  The simplicity of this journal version can be so therapeutic as you pay attention to only your immediate senses…feeling the texture, smelling the odors…seeing the complexities in color around you. 

Travel Journal

• For all of you modern-day discoverers, gypsies, you globetrotters, you internationalites, whatever awesome title you want, even if you don’t want to constantly keep a journal, taking notes during an adventure can be especially helpful as an outlet for emotions and happenings going on way far from home.   Plus, you can share with friends how cool you were overseas, or savor your trip solo one more time.

Scrapbook Journal

• At one point, I attempted to make a scrapbook AND keep a journal.  I failed miserably.  I just couldn’t get the timing right.  Keeping mementos around for a scrapbook I would make in retrospect seemed like an okay idea until I tried it.  First, I didn’t have anywhere to keep the random “things” that inevitably turned to clutter.  Also, organizing the ticket stubs and napkins and pictures into smart layouts on special paper with cute little stickers overwhelmed me.  Not to mention how expensive it can be as a hobby.  So, finally I opted for the combo.  Mixing in little tangible pieces of my epxeriences when it seemed appropriate to what I had written and when it was convenient (as in, had just gotten pictures developed, or found something saved at the bottom of my purse) proved to be a much less stressful, but still satisfying way to work the scrapbook vs. journal struggle. 

Career Journal

• Although I didn’t stick with it and have noticed it usually works more during  ambitious times or when the professional life is crazy, a journal reserved for working life offers a place to confide everything you can’t talk about with your boss.   If you’re a planner and love to make goals…or think you need to start loving it, keeping a journal dedicated to your professional plans, considering your accomplishments or latest creative impulses can really help bring peace and direction to your days.  And, maybe you’ll be less likely to have that whole life crisis thing at 50. 

Blogs

• What an idea, right?  The perfect merging of personal expression with the added element of public disclosure.  Maybe people will even care enough to comment.  Eventually, you may develop a community of people with whom you trade electronic love.  Convenient because typing is often faster for people than handwriting, online journals allow you to switch windows on the computer for a lil break during a cram night of paper writing or while cranking out a proposal for work–for some, a lot easier than lugging around literal extra baggage.  Ultimately, skipping the paper saves money and conscience.  The discreetness, the total anonymity you can choose to have with no true paper trail and a made-up name, not to mention it not being under your pillow when your mom finds it, are highly desirable.  Blogs just may be the best of both worlds, except I crave the experience of journaling on paper too.  Its exactly like the way that take out tastes amazing, but the same meal made at home with fresh ingredients generates an entirely different and more special fulfillment.

From the Archives:

Each day this week, I am going to flip through one of my old journals (a different one each day) and transfer the entry word for word to here.  Already as I previewed some of my pages, this is more nervewrecking than it seemed when I first came up with the idea.  But, I’m stubborn and am going to stick with it.  For sure, what I write where I expect nobody to see is extremely racy and sometimes so sad or scary for even me to read.  But, I’m not going to censor it and I’m not going to pick and choose.  The first flip is the pick.

“2/15/06

Hello.

I am not happy today–bleh.  I am really fat this week for some reason.  I feel so overwhelmed and I just want to be sleeping my period away.  Today Jae is coming over.  He is a gangsta (for real) who thinks that he wants to do me.  Right now, I dunno why anybody would want me.  I feel so huge–thunder thighs, chubby on the sides, blah blah blah.  I am behind in classes and I need to sit back and FOCUS!  Seriously, I need to get it together.  This semester has been so good so far, but lately I have been caught up in exciting stuff, living life.  I have another boy who is “interested” in me named Jurius.  He goes to UNCC–Sport Medicine major.  He has talked to me a couple night till way late–like 2:30am and then the other day until 6:30am.

I posted a picture of me on Myspace that shows me naked and with only a red pillow–it is a beautiful and natural picture.  Mmm.

Last night Adam took me to Harry & Jean’s and there we had a $50.00 dinner–it was very very good.  Right now I don’t really want to eat anything anymore.  I feel like starving myself but I don’t have the willpower for that–I am too much of a wimp.

<3Me.  We’ll work on this!“

 

Reader prompt:

If you do keep or have kept a journal of any type at any time, please take a moment to answer this survey in this blog’s comment section:

1. Name

2. When did you begin keeping a journal?  What or who got you interested in the first place?

3.  How often do you write?

4. What kind do you use (form)?

5. What is the main, most important purpose your journal serves (function?)

6. What do you think is the most challenging aspect of journaling?  What is your favorite?

Can’t wait to read your answers!

xoxo,

Nikia